TIMBER GROWING IN DOUGLAS FIR REGION 9 
succumb the first season. Some seed fails to germinate and yet falls 
on ground favorable for its preservation—perhaps it is covered 
lightly by the leaf fall or by animal activity, and so is ‘‘stored”’ in 
the cool duff. The disturbance of the ground by logging naturally 
buries some seed in mineral soil. A small percentage of this stored 
seed probably remains viable past the first season, and that which 
escapes injury when the virgin forest is cut and the slash burned 
gverminates the succeeding spring in response to the warmth of the 
sunlight on the burned, logged-off land. Where there are crown fires 
in virgin timber, this stored seed seems to be a very potent factor in 
insuring prompt reforestation.’ On logged and not too severely 
burned lands some reproduction undoubtedly comes from stored 
seed, at least when a good seed crop has been borne the preceding 
autumn. The rest of the reproduction—if any—comes from seed 
blown from near-by seed trees and standing timber. The proportion 
from each source depends upon local circumstances, and the evidence 
now at hand does not warrant any generalized statements that would 
apply to all localities and conditions. 
SLASH BURNING 
The theory has sometimes been advanced that broadcast slash 
burning is a necessary measure in securing reforestation, in that it 
bares the ground and stimulates germination; but detailed study 
strongly points to the conclusion that reproduction of Douglas fir 
starts more promptly and more abundantly where the slash is not 
burned. A comparison of a considerable number of burned’ areas 
with similar but unburned logged-off land, in each case quite recently 
cut over, shows 10 or more seedlings on the unburned to every seedling 
on the burned ground. Slash burning, however, because it lessens 
the water content of the surface soil, probably increases the pro- 
portion of Douglas fir over hemlock in the new crop. 
The chief reason for slash burning as a forestry measure is to 
reduce the fire menace of the vast amount of dry litter, that there 
may be less chance of accidental fires later. For most of the Douglas 
fir region broadcast slash burning has been accepted by lumbermen 
and foresters as an essential practice, a ‘‘necessary evil.”’ Until there 
is a greater degree of fire prevention, slash burning is a wise precaution 
against a greater evil—uncontrollable summer fires. 
Nevertheless a slash fire, no matter how intensely it burns, never 
leaves an area immune to subsequent fires. In this region even the 
most thoroughgoing burning fails to consume all the inflammable 
trash that is on the ground; many of the coarser limbs, tops, cull logs, 
and rotten windfalls are left; some of the duff is only charred on top; 
the standing snags are not burned down; and the unmerchantable 
ereen trees that are left may be killed but are not consumed. Areas 
burned by a good slash fire have been known to reburn the same year, 
though ordinarily the second fire would not cover all of the surface. 
All too commonly a part reburns when the fresh slash on the adjoining 
area is burned. 
1 HOFMANN, J. V. THE NATURAL REGENERATION OF DOUGLAS FIR IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST. Weis: 
Dept. Agr. Bul. 1200, 63 p., illus. 1924. 
42641°—27—_2 
